travisf

travisf

I have a feature that allows users to generate PDFs. This is done by creating an HTML version of the page and using Puppeteer to render it to a PDF. This feature worked fine but recently we made some changes to our Cloudformation templates, and had to spin up new EC2 instances. This broke puppeteer. I’ve reinstalled it and updated the Node version. Now, however I’m not even getting to the PDF generate, the application is throwing this error message:

(Phoenix.Template.UndefinedError) Could not render "quote_pdf.html" for StorefrontWeb.PDFView, please define a matching clause for render/2 or define a template at "lib/storefront_web/templates/pdf/**/*". No templates were compiled for this module.

But quote_pdf.html does exist, it hasn’t moved or changed, and I’ve redeployed a few times just to be sure. I’ve even changed up the file suffix from, trying .html.eex .html.leex, .html.heex. I’ve also created other dummy HTML files in that directory to be sure.

#uses view to call `render/2`
 use StorefrontWeb, :view

  @spec to_pdf(Map.t()) :: {:ok, String.t()} | {:error, atom()}
  def to_pdf( assigns) do

    filename = create_filename(assigns)
    render_pdf("quote_pdf.html", filename, assigns)
  end

  # sobelow_skip ["Traversal.FileModule"]
  defp render_pdf(template, filename, %{quote_id: quote_id} = assigns) do
    root_path = Application.get_env(:storefront_web, :tmp_dir)

    with html <- render_html(template, assigns),
        # the next clauses are never called 
         html_path <- Path.join([root_path, "#{filename}.html"]),
         pdf_path <- Path.join([root_path, "#{filename}.pdf"]),
         :ok <- File.write(html_path, html),
         {_, 0} <-
           System.cmd("puppeteer-pdf", [
             html_path,
             "--path",
             pdf_path
           ]) do
     ... 
  end

  def render_html(template, assigns) do
    template
    |> __MODULE__.render(assigns)
    |> html_escape()
    |> safe_to_string()
  end

Any idea why my template is no longer being found? I mentioned the server and node updates because they happened at the same time this stopped working however all the related errors went away when I got Puppeteer installed so I don’t think they are related.

Showing Posts 1 to 4

senconscious

senconscious

Can you provide where is your view, template modules placed, theirs name. And how you call render/3 from your controller ? And also what is controller name. If you haven’t touched modules (like renaming or moving) thats strange. Also what are your phoenix, view versions ?

travisf

travisf OP

the view: app/apps/storefront_web/lib/storefront_web/views/pdf_view.ex
the template: app/apps/storefront_web/lib/storefront_web/templates/pdf/quote_pdf.html.eex

The view method, to_pdf/1 is not called by a controller, but a worker.

I didn’t make this clear above but this all works locally (all my tests have also worked locally as well).

I’d be curious if there was a way to view all the templates compiled for a module, I looked into how Phoenix does this a bit on Friday but was unable to find an easy way of doing it.

axelson

axelson

Scenic Core Team

Is the _build directory carried over between deploys on the server? If so maybe try clearing it out to force a full recompile.

travisf

travisf OP

Thanks for the advice, I’m beginning to think the whole missing template thing was a red herring. After rolling back the above mentioned changes I’m still getting errors from Puppeteer that it can’t find Chromium. I think that is the root of the issue rather than missing templates.

— All posts loaded —

Where Next? Top

Trending in Discussions Top

mudasobwa
I am happy to introduce the very α version of the new programming language compiled to BEAM. Welcome Cure. It has literally three kille...
New
budgie
A little off-topic, but I feel like people here have a good head on their shoulders. I used to be quite good at making software. Was luc...
New
axelson
Hi there! :wave: @frigidcode and I (but mostly him) have been running an Elixir Book club, we’re almost done with Designing Elixir Syste...
New
achempion
I’ve been using Emacs as my main code editor for more than a two years. It’s a custom build version although I’ve tried doom emacs and sp...
New
budgie
I love Elixir. It’s one of 2 programming languages I’ve ever fallen in love with. But I don’t use it anymore. Serverless was the promis...
New
jtormey
Lately I’ve been thinking about how to organize components as a LiveView application grows. One of the pain points I’ve found (for myself...
New
Null-logic-0
What IDE or editor are you using for Elixir development? Personally, I use Zed, and I really like it, but sometimes I wish there were a ...
New

Other Trending Topics Top

GenericJam
Edit: 2026 May 15 - This post is archived. Mob is alive!! Main docs: mob v0.7.11 — Documentation A bit of explanation for the slightly c...
New
garrison
Hobbes is a low-level distributed database for the Elixir programming language. Hobbes provides a simple, safe, and scalable storage lay...
New
KristerV
Hey. Is there anyone here who creates agents in their apps? Not talking about using agents, but creating them. I’m finding it pretty diff...
New
mcass19
ExRatatui lets you cook up rich terminal UIs in Elixir, powered by Rust’s ratatui via Rustler NIFs. Build interactive terminal applicatio...
New
webofbits
With AI doing more of the implementation work, I’ve been wondering how much coding I should deliberately keep doing myself. My main conc...
#ai
New
georgeguimaraes
Just published claude-code-elixir, a plugin marketplace for Claude Code with Elixir support. These are the plugins I’ve been using for my...
New

We're in Beta

About us Mission Statement

Options

Thread Display Mode




Thread Preview

Skip Thread Previews